Ticking

I looked mournfully back at the hallway leading into the research wing. Despite reassuring my small captor I would help her, she hadn’t let go of my hand. As soon as we made it in, the door ominously closed with a sharp clink behind me.

The research lab truly encompassed the phrase there is order in chaos. Cables strewn overhead, antiques with weirdly dotted screens and tables filled with half assembled contraptions, one of them bearing the weight of a strange glowing thing that I curiously walked towards.

“Ah! Don’t stand next to that, Gia!” Finn pushed my back away from the now beeping machine.

“O-oh no, is it a dangerous one? Thank you for helping me–”

“And more importantly, your baby!” She cooed at my very flat stomach.

“W-What! There's no b—b—baby growing there!"

“Oh so you didn’t beguile the prince into marrying you, I see, that’s good to know.”

My mind filled in that there are many ways that a noble could avoid that type of responsibility, from contraceptives to assassinations and even just deny it! Logically I knew this and yet–! Thinking about something so… sh-shameless. The blood of my entire body had surely migrated to my face, there was no other explanation for how warm it was now! I felt faint, can one pass out from being too flustered!?

“Anyways, that was mostly just protocol, I can tell you’re a prude. Your face was hilarious, though. Hah, I can almost see the rusty little cogs in your brain moving.” She let out a small nasal laugh.

She handed me a small winged machine, its roundness and concentric design reminded me of an open eye.

“Hold onto it, away from me? Perfect!” She stepped away regardless. “P2PAI there’s a stranger in my lab.”

The eye flew open.

Huh.

Wait!

Instinctively, I threw it upwards and ran away from it, only to be tripped by a stray cable. Probably for the best, since that wretched thing dove in for my head.

I stood up and ran, grabbing an overhead cable to spin myself around a sharp turn. Diving down again, I heard some kind of shrapnel hit the floor. I slid down a table filled to the brim with what looked like unfinished projects. The thing stopped shooting there but resumed once I slid out the other side.

I lifted my legs to my torso and somehow rolled backwards right against the table with the thing–the anti pregnant ladies thing. In my desperation, I hopped on the table. I walked right over the device, the drone just turned to shoot again. Hah! I couldn’t be the only one who hated that wretched thing! I avoided the attack but promptly ate shit when I ran out of table to run on.

I could hear the bullet device try to shoot–!

…but nothing came out. Hah!

I turned around to see Finn drinking from a silly straw and holding a huge bucket of popped corn.

“Why–”

I couldn't finish my question as the thing dove right for my head again. Stars. Pain. Birds!?

I heard more than saw it breaking down. There was a loud whirring noise. It sounded almost painful. Then nothing.

“Isn’t it common courtesy to not refer to a guest as a stranger?” I asked, clenching my fists.

“Relax, I just needed to tire it out. You couldn’t access the band-pass filter if it’s still on, I don’t really have a way to completely turn it down other than that.” She put her snacks aside and walked to pick the drone up, waving her hand over the table cleaning up a spot to place the drone in. She put on a pair of goggles. I noticed she didn’t offer me any… This kid…

Her hands quickly made work of removing the panels over the drone. She was pulling out some kind of small fan when she stuck out her hand. “Puller.”

I stared back at her before remembering I was supposed to be the help and looked around the table for a tool that might fit on the small gears around the now removed fan. There was one standing on tiny legs that seemed about right and I handed it to her. She wrinkled her nose. “Good to know you’re not a complete rube. I meant the friction fastening one, though. Yellow.”

Sweating, I gave it to her.

The rest of my stint as an assistant was much of the same. I handed her tools while she meticulously pulled apart, cleaned, refurbished and reassembled her privacy drone. When she was working, she was a lot quieter. It was pleasant. 

Drone whole again, she pulled some cables and a modern looking keyboard.

Then she tripped.

Even if this kid had been torturing me, I knew firsthand how hard these floors were! I immediately went to catch her. Somehow, I managed to, but her ankle completely unplugged what apparently was the energy source for the lab.

Darkness. Complete darkness except for the shine coming from the antique screen. Illuminated in a pale green light, the youngest princess from the von Taxiarchos royal family looked frightening.

She sat, and her hands flew to the keyboard, code lines flashed on the screen.

“Listen to me, I’ll only say this once.” 

I nodded emphatically before realizing she probably couldn’t see me, so I stuttered out an agreement.

“We’re being observed. By your beloved. Don’t look at me like that, anyways. I don’t trust him, but I trust you will do good on this. The king is about to pass a new ruling, the gene altering one. The technology for improving the genetic quality of the newborns of the kingdom is dangerous. Don’t let that happen. The only reason the AI advisors would even push for something so catastrophically stupid is to make sure their sponsors would have perfect soldiers. They don’t care how these kids may suffer. I don’t have the power nor the credibility to get that disgrace vanished but you can, commoner consort.”

“T-That’s horrible. W-why wouldn’t you trust the prince to fix it himself?”

“For the same reason he led you here knowing I’d torture you in some way. That rodent only sees other people as pawns. Everything is for the greater good with dear Elyon. I’m selfish, and I want this ruling gone.”

“W-why do you even care about–” A beat too late, everything clicked, along with my jaw.

She pulled up her safety goggles. Barefaced and in the pale light, the youngest of the von Taxiarchos’ looked exactly her age.

“I don’t mind you knowing. It’s a bit of an open secret in the upper echelons of Elysium.”

The light comes back. The drone is now floating over the girls still sitting on the floor. 

 
👑

The framed screen is still on but it darkens nonetheless. The black glass mirroring my scowl.

I have to get to Gia.

My footwear clicked over the polished floors of the castle. The sound was gratifying used to intimidate some noble down its luck, but not so much when I was ungracefully sprinting to save my new favorite plaything from a hellion.

Gia, rather than a perfect gear, a wrench to throw at the machine that was Elysium.